Velcro

As Solomon grew old… his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.

1 Kings 11:4-6

At one point in Solomon’s life, he was fully devoted to the Lord. His heart was fully surrendered to God. Yet, as he grew older, he experienced a kind of heart-drift. In order to appease his wives and gain favor with other countries and kingdoms, Solomon allowed the worship of false gods. Then, not only did he allow it, Solomon began to participate in it. Finally, not only did Solomon participate, but he ordered the building of special high places for the worship of these false gods.

But notice that it didn’t say that Solomon became an unbeliever. There really isn’t such a thing. We all worship something, even if that something is ourselves. We’ll make something our god. It is the thing to which we have the most loyalty. It’s the thing to which we’ve given our heart. Solomon still believed in and worshiped the Lord. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that he worshiped the Lord AND worshiped these false gods. What set his father David apart was his full and complete devotion to the Lord. Despite all of David’s mistakes and failures, David’s heart belonged to the Lord and the Lord alone.

The theological word for mixing our worship of the Lord with the worship of other “gods” in our life is syncretism. There are consequences for treating the Lord as if He is just one option on a buffet of spiritual food.

The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord’s command. So the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son.

1 Kings 11:9-12

Like the tearing of a garment, the Lord declared that He would take the kingdom out of Solomon’s hands. But, for the sake of David, the Lord would not do it in Solomon’s lifetime but would wait until the next generation came into power. Because Solomon’s connection to the Lord went from being intertwined to being little more than velcro, God would rip the kingdom out of his hands like velcro pulling apart.

A highly prophetic friend of mine once gave me this word that said, “whatever isn’t interwoven will be removed.” If we are interwoven with the Lord, nothing can pull us away from Him. Our heart will be fully surrendered and devoted to Him. But if our connection to Him is little more than velcro, when life pulls on it, there will be a ripping away. Likewise, our relationships to each other must be interwoven and not just velcro or they’ll pull away.

So, we must ask ourselves, “What other ‘gods’ are we worshiping?” “What other things have crowded our hearts and stollen some worship from the Lord?” Like David, is our heart fully devoted to the Lord? Or, like Solomon, have we set up a few high places that have us bowing down to priorities other than God’s priorities?